Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-09-15
st,nMER I'M ALASKA.
Sights of Understandable Beauty TO BE Seen
In Glacier Bay.

| Sights of IndescribabIe Beauty To BE Seen
In Glacier Bay.
At 4:3O, while the passengers were
J asleep, our ship shove up" her anchor
and started for Glacier Bay. Although
! the mist lowered along the mountains.
| yet we had most beautiful and superb
scenery. On the right and on the left
was mountain upon mountain, with
| lofty cataracts, now q torrent, now a
silver thread streaming down into our
marvellous river. At twelve m. we
were at Chatham Straits. at three Icy
Straits, at $50 we passed Willoughby
Island, and reached the ice-field filled
with bergs. While we were at dinner
we came alongside large iceberg of
such beauty that the passengers rose
from their seats and cheered with en-
thusiasm at the novelty of the scene.
We had greatly feared the mist would
obscure our view, but in due time the
mist lifted and the great glacier stood
out in majestic grandeur, solid wall
of ice two and half miles long, and
from two hundred to three hundred
feet high, frozen Niagara. At 1850
we had anchored in front of the glacier,
half mile distant, in twelve fathoms
Of water and close to the shore. Most
of the passengers landed, and many of
us clambered up the icy peaks. The
surface was broken by crevasses, fis-
sures and deep wells. A great quantity
of debris, broken rock, gravel, soil,
etc., is scattered over it, and impercept-
IDLY borne onward to the ocean.
II 4
peak in the vast field of ice
the utmost caution was necessary to
maintain our footing. Pieces of rock
thrown down into the crevasses on
either side could be heard as they
struck the water far below. Amateur
photographers were busy getting views.
some of which were admirable. This
glacier is called THE Muir" in honor
of Prof. Muir, the first white man to
explore it. Concerning it the professor
says: at is three miles wide at its
mouth, ten miles back it is ten miles
wide, and near this sixteen branches of
the first class unite to form one i'm
mense glacier; four of the sixteen are
over two miles wide; the distance from
the face of the glacier to its furthest
removed fountain is about forty miles"
AS our vessel approached, an i'm
mense iceberg fell with the noise of
thunder, and so agitated the waters
that our ship danced upon the waves.
When we had returned from the top
we stood upon the shore watching the
vast wall of ice. Now and then a roar
as of often repeated artillery, or of
pealing thunder would come to our
ears. 1t was the sound of the cracking
ice. Presently gigantic block would
lose its hold and drop with the roar of
cannon. Then the excited water would
heave and swell until, reaching the
shore, it forced us to flee up the banks to
escape the advancing waves. AT length
we had to return to the steamer. Here we
lay anchored all night. While we had
been wholly absorbed with this new de-
light, our ships crew was laying in
stock of glacier ice for the round trip.
So that we have been drinking ice
water cooled with ice two thousand
years old, more or less. At 11:45 on
the deck of the ship we were able by
twilight to read type of good size.
Sunday morning at 4:30 we turned
away from the glacier and steamed
down the bay.
Steering to the left into Chatham
Straits, We arrived at 2:35 p. m. at
Davidson Glacier, which sweeps down
a gorge sloping to the bay. A fringe
of frs hides its waterfront. Its ter
raced walls look like the broken and
repeated leaps of river which has
been suddenly arrested in its course
and transformed into a solid mass.
Northward, as we turn away from the
Davidson, another glacier appears, and
as we steam away southwark two or
three are seen upon our left, with lofty
walls of blue ice hundreds of feet in
height One is surprised and delighted
at the strange blue of the glacier ice.
1t looks as if it had been bathed in the
deepest azure of the skies.-Cor. Balti-